Ready for Now to Begin
by Taintless
Summary: He knew her better than nearly anybody – but he was about to know her in a completely new way, a side he had never seen before…


The air between them was tense - different than it had ever felt before – and there was a strange distance between them. She felt like she could feel the flicker of the candle light on her face, feel the soft brush of the light on her skin. Her whole body felt like it was tingling with adrenaline and sensation. She smiled at him. It may have been a nervous smile, but it was a smile all the same.

She paused and then, with great deliberation, took a step towards him. The air still felt heavy around her and as she moved towards him, she felt as if the atmosphere around her was almost crackling, as if she was breaking through any distance between them, stepping over a threshold into new territory. Her step towards him seemed to awaken something in him too. One moment, he had been sitting on the bed, still as a statue, simply watching her. But now, his knees bent and he looked like he was almost straining himself not to stand up or to fidget. His eyes were dancing and glinting in the flickering candlelight, and an anxious smile broke out to meet hers.

"Hermione…" he started but his voice trailed off. That was good; she didn't want him to talk right now. They had spent seven years talking. This was not the time for talk. If they started to talk, she felt like this may not happen. She was ready. She wanted this to happen.

It was funny – he was one of her best friend. They'd fought side by side; they'd battled all sorts of creatures and survived numerous incidents that no underage wizard had any real right to survive. He knew her better than nearly anybody – but he was about to know her in a completely new way, a side he had never seen before…

She didn't take her eyes off him but slowly began to unbutton her cloak. Again, he looked as if he was about to move but fought the temptation. Instead, he just stared at her as if he wasn't quite sure whether this was happening or not. If she didn't know better, she might have thought he was cursed.

Her cheeks flushed red as she undressed in front of him, until she was wearing just a plain slip. She stood, not really sure what to do yet. Suddenly she couldn't quite keep eye contact and looked down uncertainly at herself. A flush of self-criticism rose through her - she was too skinny, too fat, too awkward, too curvy, too shapeless…. – a self-criticism she knew was inbuilt into most women, a self-criticism she normally didn't indulge.

But then she looked back at him, and saw that there was no criticism in his eyes. She knew, just by the expression on his face, that he thought the sight of her candle light, with her frizzy brown hair wearing her plain white slip, was beautiful. And suddenly she believed him – suddenly with a burst of realisation she felt beautiful. She _was_ beautiful.

A rush went through her and suddenly she was standing over him as he sat on the bed. With a more daring smile this time, she bent down and kissed him on the lips. She kissed him like she had never kissed him before and she felt him responding to it immediately, felt his probing tongue gently between her lips. She didn't want gentle. She sped up her kisses almost demandingly and deepened them and he matched her pace. This wasn't like the soft, slow kisses they'd briefly shared so far since they gave up the pretence of platonic friendship. There was an immediacy and a want here that she had never felt before on her life, a sudden drive for _now_.

It felt like she had left a part of herself go. The part of her that worried about studying and the future and the bores of day to day modern life seemed to disappear. Instead, she felt like she was connecting to a different form of herself, a woman who connected with the women that had lived since the dawn of time, before electricity, and wands, and jobs, and money, a woman following her primal instincts to eat, live, survive, satisfy. A woman who suddenly knew what she was doing.

She pushed him down on to the bed so he was now lying down and she was on top of him. She stopped her kissing and leaned back to see him, so that she was almost sitting on top of him, legs curved on either side of him. He was shaking. His eyes were bluer than ever and seemed to be burning almost feverishly. She realised suddenly that she wanted him to see all of her – that she had nothing left to hide from Ron Weasley, that she was ready to give herself to him completely.

She lifted the slip up over her head and tossed it to the side. Something convulsed inside of her as she felt his eyes on her body, drinking her in. She was aware of every inch of her body now, every curve, every dimple, every smooth line. She felt like she had never fully appreciated her own body up until that point. She had never felt so _powerful_ in her life – this was real magic.

She felt his hands urge her back down to him and suddenly his hands were running up and down the arch of her back and his wet lips were on her cheeks, her neck, her shoulders, her collarbone, her chest.

She suddenly realised she was ready to see him also – she was ready to let him give himself to her completely too. She unbuttoned his cloak and pulled it off him. Taking a deep breath, she tugged at his trousers. His mouth and hands were teasing her now and she realised that the primal, instinctive woman inside her was enjoying it, reacting to it. Her body was acting of its own free will; she didn't need to think about her actions anymore and there was something oddly freeing in leaving go of all the doubt and the confusion and simply doing as she pleased and reacting as she wanted.

Their naked bodies curved together against the bed, fitting together as if this is the way they should have been since the start of time. They moved together in their own private beat, a private rhythm they had both never shared with anybody else before.

He was her best friend, her loyal companion, her brave warrior. And now he was to be hers completely.


End file.
